TSA Employee Accused Of Lifting 8 iPads That Were Definitely Not His

A Transportation Security Administration worker at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport stands accused of theft, after cops say he was found with eight iPads he’d boosted from checked luggage. Looting bags has become too popular of a pastime these days, but luckily one owner used his device’s tracking system to locate the pilfered pad.

Local news WFAA says the suspects works in the terminal, at an out-of-sight-position called the “Resolution Room” where luggage is screened by hand. Police claim that’s where he boosted the electronics passengers had packed.

One of the alleged theft victims tracked down the missing iPad, right to the employee’s home. Cops say they then found the TSA worker with the seven additional iPads at work.

He’s on administrative leave until the agency investigates his case. The TSA doesn’t want everyone to get scared, however, adding in their statement that just because one guy steals stuff, doesn’t mean they all will.

“The action of one individual in no way reflects on the outstanding job our more than 50,000 security officers do every day.”

I’d be willing to bet the number of TSA employees who are thieves is probably in line with the number of Walmart employees who are thieves (as a percentage). The only reason we continue to hear about these stories is because the TSA is a government agency.

All things considered I doubt the TSA hires crooks any more often than anyone else, and I don’t think they make it easier to steal than other companies do. I worked retail back in high school and part of college, and I witnessed several people lose their jobs due to thievery… but the sad part was there were a lot more who just never got caught.

I know people expect the TSA to be held to a higher standard because they wear a badge and because they are government employees, but in the end people are just people and crooks are crooks. At the wages these people are paid, it doesn’t surprise me that they can’t find high quality employees – and that isn’t an excuse but merely an observation.

While I would tend to agree with you about the percentages of all of it, my beef with this being the TSA is that they’re trust not to steal your belongings when their job is specifically to search luggage. Luggage belonging to other people. I’m not saying that stealing from a giant corporation is somehow justified, but when the blow to trust is a little more severe when these TSA agents are supposed to be searching for harmful items, not stealing things.

I see what you are saying and it is a valid point, but at the same time employers trust that their employees will do their jobs and not steal from them. I know of a bartender who bragged that he pocketed $100 to $200 in cash every night he worked at a small bar… that was money straight out of the pocket of the owner.

I also know of a guy who embezzled from a business owned by a good friend of his… again the money came right out of the owner’s pocket.

I think what gets people worked up about the TSA is it is a government employee stealing from a citizen. It is almost a real life representation of how the government robs us blind. This just seems to hit on all the hot button trigger points on why people hate government so it is blown out of proportion.

You had me with you right up until this:
“It is almost a real life representation of how the government robs us blind”
Your smart, you make great points, leave the hyperbole out of it and you’ll gain a lot more respect.

I would be willing to bet that the TSA’s percentages are significantly higher than wal-mart greeters. For one thing Walmart seems to have more stringent hiring procedures than the TSA. Plus they have a great deal more opportunity, and there are probably fewer thieves in the 65+ retiree work pool than in the general labor, pool.

You’d think that people working in a position where they are alone with people’s luggage and have the chance to steal things would have to go through a TSA style pat down before they leave to ensure they haven’t taken any items out with them.

Yet another “isolated event” that would not have occurred if the TSA’s employees were required to undergo the same screening as airline passengers upon entering and exiting the sterile area.

Scope ‘em and grope ‘em – I guarantee there are more criminals per capita in the TSA’s ranks than in the general flying public. The TSA doesn’t trust airline passengers, so why should we trust the TSA?

Yea, if only this were ONE employee. We’ve seen what, 10 of these over the last year? And those are the ones who have been caught. There are many many many other stories of missing items. TSA can’t even police itself, and somehow they have the power to strip and detain people because a machine of questionable effectiveness told them too.

In the past year they have prevented numerous passengers from boarding with guns and knives, and although I may not label every one of these people as a terrorist, it is possible at least one of them is.

If someone steals my iPad I still have my life. If they decide to hijack a plane and crash it into a field it pretty much guarantees a bad outcome, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say the people the TSA is designed to prevent are a larger threat. In fact it isn’t even close.

Are they perfect? Far from it. Do they need a major revamp? You bet. Do they employ criminals? Sure seems like it. However given the choice between what we currently have or no security at all… we are a LOT better off. Like it or not, they do create a barrier. It isn’t foolproof – they do make mistakes, but they also make it much more difficult for a would-be terrorist to attempt to board a plane with a device or object intended to cause harm.

But how are they going to hijack an aircraft with a knife? Aren’t cockpit doors locked and only the captain can open it? Would the captain of an aircraft let a hijacker in the cockpit if he threatened to kill one (or all) of the passengers?

You would have to ask the captain. I imagine policy dictates they don’t open the door for anyone, but if the threaten to kill the flight attendent he is banging on the side… who knows.

Plus – are all cockpit doors reinforced? How well are they reinforced? I don’t really know, but if enough people got knives on board, I’m sure they could do enough damage that who knows what might happen. Even if they don’t get in the cockpit they could still cause a lot of harm and injure and/or kill many people.

Why risk it? I’d rather have security that is a little overzealous than one that is way to liberal.

If a hijacker demands access to the cockpit, then I as a passenger feel that I have no choice but fight with everything, to the death if need be. Because if he gains control of the aircraft then we know that we, and many more on the ground, are going to murdered anyhow. So I have no choice but to do literally everything in my power to prevent that from happening. Even if it means I get killed.

I think 100% of the passengers would agree and would react exactly the same way.

My point is. It doesn’t matter how well reinforced the door is. The hijacker will have kill me, and every other passenger, before he will get in that door. That is simply a line that can not be crossed ever again.

You genuinely think that a pilot, behind a locked door, would open the cockpit door to a lunatic holding a knife to a flight attendant? What rational person would do that? Yes, the lunatic might kill the flight attendant, and that would suck. But if you open the door, you’ve given them the opportunity to kill you (plus a few hundred on the plane and countless thousands on the ground). Simply ridiculous. And in your senario, everyone else on the plane is doing what??? Just watching? I don’t think so.

If you don’t mind the TSA groping your 10-year old son’s testicles, or feeling up your 12-year old daughter’s new breasts, or fooling around with your spouse’s insulin pump, that’s fine, but don’t expect the rest of us to say, “More please.”

However given the choice between what we currently have or no security at all… we are a LOT better off.
You base this opinion on what empirical evidence, exactly? There was way less security in the 60s/70s, and yet the thing everybody cites happened in 2001, after ‘security’ was “improved.”
We’ll never know how we would fare with different or less security, or more useful practices such as those in other countries, where your behavior is more important than your carry-on (or the bottle of Coke you would like to finish past security).

There weren’t a lot of hijackings back in the 50s and 60s probably because air travel was very expensive and wasn’t nearly as popular with the masses as it is today. People didn’t worry about it because it wasn’t a common event, but once the cat was out of the bag things got progressively worse and worse.

Do you recall all the hijacked aircraft in the late 70s and 80s? Security had to be enhanced as a direct response. We were obviously too lax about it when 9/11 happened, and although some of the enhancements are likely nothing more than a knee jerk reaction to that day, much of it is merely to prevent a repeat performance.

I don’t think it passes the logic test to say we don’t know what would happen if we didn’t have security. History shows us what would happen, and human nature shows us that the likely outcome would be terrorists continuing to escalate their behavior.

This is why I’m confident in stating we are better off with the TSA than we are without them. They can improve obviously, but this mentality that suggests we should just allow people on planes with very little security if any at all is comical… and naive.

9/11 happened because the procedure at that time, when a hijacking occurred, was to give the hijackers whatever they wanted, fly them to wherever they wanted and then deal with them on the ground.

Unfortunately, that is exactly the wrong thing to do when hijacked by a bunch of suicide bombers. The 9/11 hijackers, as far as we know, were armed only with knives. If they had been unable to access the cockpit (cockpit doors have now been reinforced) and if the passengers and crew had not submitted, there would have been no incident. The 9/11 suicide bombers did not exploit a flaw in security so much as they exploited a blind spot in the thinking.

Look at the last year how many items DID make it through, guns, knives, razors, Adam Savages 12 inch bladed razors…

And yet, even with all of those items flying through the sky, no one was blown up… Why? Because those items are dangerous in and of themselves. It’s the people with the will to use ordinary items (like box cutters) that are dangerous. banning the items is stupid and a waste of time. We need an intelligence based threat assessment system. WHICH by the way, was responsible for most of the ACTUAL threat arrests of the past few years. TSA screening has captured nothing.

A kinda-pointy piece of plastic is verboten. But, I can bring a CD on-board, then snap it in half, leaving a jagged edge, and that’s perfectly fine! In fact, I can bring my 10 inch steel knitting needles, and they are explicitly allowed!!

The rest of the items, with one exception, would easily have been caught with the ‘old-fashioned’ walk through metal detectors. No need for Freedom Gropes and Freedom Radiation. That remaining item (“Small chunks of C4 explosives”), would have been caught with a simple sniffer. Either mechanical or canine.

As for that spike, I guarantee I can do a lot more damage with a 49¬¢ Bic Stic pen than a metal butter knife, but the TSA, interested in keep up appearances won’t be taking away your roller ball pens any time soon.

Thank you for MAKING MY POINT. None of these things were brought onboard to be used as weapons. No one was going to hijack a plane with a science experiment, or a turtle, or with num-chucks. It’s theater. The weapons themselves aren’t dangerous.

It’s the people willing to use them that are dangerous. You cannot screen for every single dangerous item. Hell, they don’t even get every handgun. They missed a dozen over the last year.

People who are having their luggage hand-searched should be able to watch the search from an adjacent room with a large window. That way people don’t have to worry about everyone in the airport seeing their vibrator/kinky underwear, yet there is still accountability.

OK, it might not do much, but usually that kind of thing that greatly increases the risk of being discovered is enough to greatly reduce crimes of opportunity.

Normally they do, in fact your carry-on is never supposed to leave your sight. But this asshole was lifting stuff from checked bags that got flagged after screening. I’d bet 7 iPads that he was working with the initial screener.

You mean the scanners? The ones where you can see your bag going in and then right back out? Well unless they now come equipped with dwarfs inside that can steal things out of a bag in under 10 seconds I think you’re ok.

When you give somebody who knows that (s)he can steal things in private a private location to do the deed you are aiding and abetting the crime. Some TSA administrators deserve termination and hard time for assisting the criminals they hired to abuse the public and steal from them with impunity. If you are going to have people rummaging at will through luggage they should at least be doing it in a No Lone Zone with many eyes and cameras upon them.

I wonder if the bags that contain anything that looked like an Ipad under x-ray were automatically being selected for “additional screening”, and how many other screeners were in on it. I automatically assume that there are thieving screeners at every airport and pack my carry-ons accordingly.

I am 99.9% sure this is happening as you’ve described. The TSA spokesmen, however, would claim that it was a mere coincidence that this particular screener was exposed to 7 different “random” checked bags that contained iPads in a single day.

I don’t understand how something like this could happen. There is HUGE precedent for setting up a workplace so that low-paid employees can be trusted to work with high value objects without a major theft risk. Just look at count rooms casinos, US Mint or BEP production lines, etc. Some easy steps:

* Security cameras in the “Resolution Room”
* No personal items or bags allowed in the “Resolution Room”
* Personnel in the “Resolution Room” wear uniforms without pockets or jackets
* Employees go through a metal detector/patdown when leaving the “Resolution Room” (the TSA should be good at this)
* Employees who work with passenger luggage out of sight of said passengers have their personal bags searched when clocking out (again, TSA should be good at this)

Bag comes in with iPad.
TSA Agent steals iPad.
Upon leaving TSA Agent’s bag is checked by another TSA Agent.
That TSA Agent steals the stolen iPad
When the 2nd TSA Agent leaves, he is searched by another TSA Agent (Perhaps the first guy again)
The stolen iPad that was stolen, is stolen again.

Now as more and more passenger luggage is screened, the stolen electronics that are stuck in this loop continue to exponentially grow until they need to hire more TSA agents due to the delays the TSA agents are causing by the increased time needing to steal the stolen goods.

One will only hope at some point the electronics reach critical mass and destroy the entire TSA workforce all at once…

I would think it would be much simpler than that. Build a locker room for TSA employees, then require them to change into and out of their uniform there. Prohibit them from bringing any bags or other parcels into and out of the locker room. If the only object they can leave with is themselves in their street clothes, it is much harder to take pilfered items home with them.

“The action of one individual in no way reflects on the outstanding job our more than 50,000 security officers do every day.”

Oh bullshit. I mean, of course they have to say that, but it’s complete bullshit. They have no idea what is going on between the TSA employees, who have been given free reign in our airports. I guess this guy would like to explain how my mother in law had a camera stolen from her checked luggage at a completely different airport. Just a coincidence I guess.

I second the other comment that asked why there wouldn’t be cameras in that room?? There should be cameras at every point of a security check, whether for person or luggage.

he only got caught because a customer tracked him down – otherwise he’d still be stealing. Friends in the biz talk about how stealing from traveler is a perk of the job and they never get checked. This is by no means an isolated incident and he was caught with a felonious about of property at a security sensitive job, why isn’t he in jail?

How many has he eBay’d or Craig List’d before a customer tracked him down. Why is it that 50K security professionals were unable to prevent or even detect the crime. I’m sure there were complaints from specific customers on specific flights at specific times and dates… but noooooooooo, nothing to go on.

That resolution room should be a clean room. One way in, one way out and you can’t take anything out. This is BS. You give people every opportunity to steal with little chance of getting caught and odds are you’ll get more than a few people succumbing to the temptation.

Having been the victim of theft from my checked luggage, mad about the frequency of events like these (hardly isolated) etc. …
I would require that:
– both the carry-on and the checked luggage screening happens in a glass room / open environment
– passengers can actually watch their luggage and belongings while they are being screened
– said glass room is under continuous multiple camera surveillance
– TSA staff should not be allowed to take any personal items with them, in or out of the screen areas. Maybe they can take a bottle of water or soda to where they work, to stay hydrated but that’s it. No bags, no purses, no backpacks, … at neither carry-on nor checked luggage checkpoints.
– TSA staff has to get screened like passengers on the way in and out, with metal detectors and/or body scanners, to make sure they take no items in or out of the screening environments

You know the drug-making scenes in some movies? You know how the lowly-paid workers are dressed? Or more to the point, how little they are dressed? Yeah, that’s how workers in the resolution room should be dressed. And there needs to be plexiglass windows so we and the cameras can watch ‘em all. Ok, maybe we don’t need to watch ‘em, but the cameras should be there as well.
Also, as someone else said, 8 iPads = felony theft. Why isn’t he in jail? Investigation is what the local police do; if you or I had that many, we’d have been arrested, arraigned, and then depending on bail, be sitting in jail awaiting our trial or at home awaiting the trial date. Boy wouldn’t I love to be a juror on that trial.

My word, is there anything the TSA doesn’t stoop to? Fondling underage girls, stealing cupcakes, stealing cash, stealing laptops at the screening area, freaking about insulin pumps, and stealing stuff from checked baggage… do these people actually get paid a salary or are they expected to lift enough cash/valuables to be able to live on?

How long before they try to steal pacemakers?

Maybe next they will start confiscating gold necklaces on the grounds they could be used as a weapon to strangle someone? Or taking canes/crutches from people who need them on the grounds canes/crutches could be used as weapons?

Since, by TSA logic, if one middle-Eastern looking guy is likely to blow up an airplane, they all will and that’s why these assclowns all have jobs, then why, if one TSA guy is stealing from luggage, won’t all of them? After all, that’s their thinking, isn’t it?

Disband the TSA. It is nothing but a money drain and is full of incompetent employees that harass and make life miserable for travelers. Thanks to the TSA for keeping us “safe” from breast milk, pens, cupcakes in a jar and other hazardous materials.